Bingo is a popular game throughout the United States and around the world consisting of multiple players competing to be the first to achieve one or more predesignated patterns by matching randomly drawn numbers to one or more unique, predesignated paper or electronic bingo cards. The first player to achieve a predesignated pattern on his bingo card is awarded a prize.
Technology has enabled many variations on bingo allowing a single player to play large numbers of electronic cards in a single game, entertaining displays of cards, objects drawn, and results, and other unique game play characteristics.
Electronic aids and computer networks have enabled broader participation in bingo games by removing the restriction that all players be co-located in a single facility. Furthermore, this broadened participation has yielded a variety of unique game designs.
One such game design is the subject of the Weingardt patents (U.S. Pat. No. 5,727,786 and U.S. Pat. No. 6,565,091). The Weingardt patents disclose a bingo game featuring bingo cards with color designations added to the traditional columns and rows of numbers. In these inventions, the player may receive a progressive jackpot prize by achieving the game-ending bingo pattern, and also by covering a secondary pattern of all one color (e.g. a straight line of blue numbers). This secondary colored pattern awards an advertised amount associated with the specific color. A typical game may include several jackpot colors. For example, a game may include five colors (red, blue, yellow, green, and purple) associated with five separate jackpots.
This game has proven popular with players by enabling the advertising of large, growing jackpots not typically associated with bingo games. The color designations on the bingo card enable these large jackpots by extending the available outcomes and probabilities of a multiplayer bingo game. A player that wins has the possibility of winning a much larger prize by meeting the color criteria.